


Blades of Saturn

by BugTongue



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cannibalism, Humans as Trolls, Multi, Politics, cult of the signless, pointlessly revealing threshecutioner uniforms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:05:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4473422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BugTongue/pseuds/BugTongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three trolls deal with adulthood and the consequences of their actions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blades of Saturn

**Author's Note:**

> After testing everyone's patience on Skype, here it is. Thanks to Necey, because all my apps crashed at once the first time I tried to post this.

As the sweep's third hot season drew to a close, the stoop-trees dropped their edible seed pods to the baked earth, grasses and other ground-sprouts taking on the colors of a dying salt fire. The heat was making its gradual retreat, and with it came a wash of relief to the senses, but no peace of mind.

Ascension was drawing near, and every troll within the hatch mark was rushing to get their shit in order before the drafts caught stragglers and put them to work in less desirable jobs. That is, those actually in the registry were. For those unfortunate few with deplorable traits pervasive enough to require culling, yet more plans needed to be made. For Karkat Vantas, those plans involve either making a big enough show to be accepted or going out fast with a bang.

That's assuming he could nab enough resources to make it past security.

-

Karkat put his face in his hands and took one breath, then one more breath, then interrupted the third with a rolling snarl as he shot to his feet and grabbed his hair. He didn't dare take his anger out on the computer, so he left the block and descended the stairs. There were no placating screams from an over-sized lusus, hadn't been for sweeps now and he wasn't about to get sentimental about it while his life was on the line. He needed to get past the security blocks, and his viruses had done such minute damage he was liable to be tracked and disposed of before he could send out a second wave.

Cold met his sweaty face when he opened the thermal hull, along with the varied (and sparse) sight of scavenged food items and drinks. One in particular found its way to his lips before he could even think to talk himself out of it. A simple bottle made of cerulean glass with a screw-on flower shaped lid. Grainflower nectar, cold and sweet and soothing to a stomach as clenched tight as his. He pressed his face to the upper compartment door while re-capping the bottle by feel and placing it back inside. There wasn't much to be done about the gnawing sensation in his gut what with how the neighbors had learned not to come near his lawnring or else were already... picked off. There were no newly unguarded hives to raid and he'd recently spent more money than he felt comfortable thinking about on fake identification records, since of fucking course he'd never been given any in the first place.

By some half-assed miracle he'd been granted a hive and a lusus, but beyond that he'd been on his own. No schoolfeeds, no supply drones, hell he didn't even have a strife kind until a friend wired him some credits after a particularly amusing game fail. Oh of course he'd been given a husktop, what kind of backwards semi benevolent aid would leave him without some form of communication device? Food could be scraped out of the ground, workable tech could not unless you were just one of those shithive maggot _geniuses_ that knew how to turn a memory board into a radio.

Which karkat was not, under any floral-shaded scrutiny.

Even still, persistence counted for a hell of a lot in his species and he would do what he could to live up to that. They may end up slitting his carapace six ways to sunrise but he'd make it more than difficult. Maybe that would be enough to gain the prestige, to get into the ranks of the elite, he had murdered enough trolls by now just for the sake of drawing another breath or filling his starve-sunken gut, he should make for a fine enough fighter given the proper training. He just needed to live long enough and spit in the right faces to _get_ there. It would take all his will to claw his way to the top but old one's be fucked he'd get there.

The night passed into dazzling bright and Karkat donned his sun cloak. There were things he needed from the city and he couldn't have his name attached to a hover drop, he would need to go out himself and get it. And so he did, wearing his coat for the walk to the nearest underground hallway. The steps were lit by luminescent fungi, blue and green dirtied by buggy oil and trash, more organic matter here and there that Karkat didn't bother trying to identify anymore, since the whole handful of possibilities were nasty as hell. The walls were papered with adverts and hit requests, lazy graffiti etched and marked here and there, nothing close to the murals deeper below or in the miraculous citadel. Karkat followed the stone-carved path not towards the nearest city, but the larger one just beyond. There were a few trolls he had to scrape the wall to pass by without any sort of touch triggered altercation but for the most part the hall was quiet save for the low hum of machinery.

Once above ground he didn't need to pull his hood back up since most areas were tarped appropriately. The false sky here was nearly full caste, everything from maroon to deep blue adorning windowsills and walkways, paint splotches marked the ground where neighbors got snide enough to paint their color over a tarp touching their hiveblock. Karkat kept his eyes on the foreground and away from the chance of making contact with someone else, pulse racing. Out here he was fair game with no safe place to run for; if someone somehow discovered his hue he was meat.

Inside the electronics shop the heat was muted, not quite the damp chill of the underhalls but better than summer sun warmed air. He swallowed at how many trolls were in the building and kept his feet from catching on each other through sheer force of will not to gain attention. Not yet, he had to make it to the right audience before causing a scene. He grabbed the little vial off the shelf holding a bright blue dataworm, flat and evenly segmented with an attachment pincer, and took it up to the check out counter. The kid behind the counter carelessly rang him up, silver irises hidden under tired lids.

"A'ight dude, fork over the monetary... Whatever, the credits." He mooshed his cheek into a resting position atop a clenched fist while Karkat typed in his information. Or rather, one of his neighbor's credit banks.

"What, too tired to sling a couple nouns and and adjectives together? Better get on that firefly shit or you'll get replaced."

The kid just shrugged, showing tongue between teeth and lips hitched up to the gums. "I'll just go to the arcade then, job assignment is shitty here anyway."

Karkat snorted and left him to it, going a few streets diagonal to a hardware rummage Sollux mentioned a few rotations back. It was a dingy warehouse with crates and shelves and bioplastic drawers full of seemingly random hunks of metal. Shrapnel, flotsam and jetsam, things that looked like old ships and eldertech and honest to god rusty garbage. Which was perfect for this particular project. He grabbed a prongful of objects that would, if the demoness didn't want him yet, fix the larger modem he had in the closet. If he could power that thing up he stood a chance of putting his name on the Threshecutioner cadets list. If he was already _there_ , they would ask less questions. Probably.

He left the required amount of his own junk in the receiver bin and put his hood back up despite the tarps. Blood sang in his veins, the streets having grown unnervingly vacant. Shit, it was either adults or he was about to get his ass mugged, and by the lack and air pressure changes they were stealthier than some desperate scumslitter. He pressed his lips tight over needle like teeth and listened hard, walking casual as you please towards the closest underway. 

He didn't make it half a step down before a female voice stopped him, large eyes peeking up from beneath a hood. "follow me, child. There's wasps in the streets." She beckoned him below, and between her and the reds apparently buzzing around he'd rather take his chances with this hall wraith. So beneath he went, moving quickly... back the way he'd come. His pupils slit despite the dark and he rubbed his thumb against the strife appearafier band around his hand in preparation for a fight. If she knew where he lived she'd know better but karkat had certainly come across less pan-present trolls before. 

She did indeed lead him home and waited at his door expectantly while he stood there, feet apart and squinting. 

"Have you been watching me?" The slight tremor to his voice couldn't be helped, his pulse was too fast to speak calmly. She smiled and it was sickeningly kind. 

"Yes I have, and I believe it's time to talk. Don't worry, I've no desire to harm you. Why don't you invite me in?" The sunlight glinted around them while the heat soaked in past the coat. He couldn't stay out here much longer without burning, and she didn't honestly seem threatening besides the hardened, coal-colored skin of adulthood. He nodded and opened the door, leaving it unlatched for her to enter behind him while he hooked the suncoat to the preparation-receptacle rack. 

Once inside she pulled her hood down and padded into the entertainment block, sitting down on the couch before turning towards him. Ratty cloak made of thick material and horns that curved down under chin and jutted back, lips glossed black, she looked like, like, he didn't know but it felt purposeful. He'd offer her some sort of snack but most trolls avoided his particular diet. Maybe he should anyway, out of politeness. Shit would it even be polite at that point? He stood at the edge of the hall, unsure. He'd never had anyone over maybe all that shit about niceties was ancient history? She interrupted his thoughts by speaking up. 

"I dislike to invite you to sit in your own hive, but I'm about to drop a bit of a bomb here, metaphorically speaking, and I think you should be sitting down." She sounded so gentle, it made Karkat's gastric sack twist and remind him all he had were snacks right now. No actual sustenance. She had no weapons and probably wouldn't be that difficult to take down- he shut his eyes for a moment to stop his mouth from watering before sitting down in the seat across the small table littered with daily garbage. 

"Alright spit it out then before you overstay your welcome." He drew his legs up and hunched over his knees, absently ripping the upholstery apart, thread by thread. 

"Absolutely. As I mentioned before, I've been watching you. Well, we have. You see, I and the rest of my cult are the reason you weren't culled at birth, why you have a hive and at one point a lusus. Very unfortunate that last bit, we didn't know how old he was... Oh please don't look so shocked, I'll explain all of this if you allow me time." Karkat felt dizzy and needed to lean back in the chair, fingers shoved into the chair stuffing. She was a fucking liar, right? It fit way too neatly into all the missing pieces. And why now of all times to tell him this? 

"Hold the shit up, and keep holding until this one query gets tucked neatly away into the shitty solved-puzzles drawer. Why, if you apparently set this all up, why... Not the rest? Shelter and an old as the sun crustacean symbiote, but what about anything else?" 

She smiled again, eyebrows drawn as she clasped her hands in her lap. "Dear one we needed you to understand. It was not out of lack of compassion, but as a visceral way for you to come to know the struggles of your people, and consequently your ancestor. You are more important than you could have ever dreamed." She frowned at the laughter bubbling in his chest. 

"So you what, you let me live but not really? You know what I've had to do? Apparently you've been outside my window, which is beyond creepy by the way, but you know. Right? What the fuck. What the fuck?" 

"You always managed, and we made sure to plant supplies in places you'd find them. You're stronger for it-" 

"I ate my neighbors! People I-, people I could have been friends with! You gave me a bunk guardian and let a scared two sweep old think all his neighbors were _resources_!" She made a face, eyes wide and front teeth visible as she leaned away. 

"You would have rejected help, and besides if we had coddled you then you'd never have known the truth about this civilization. You'd grow up brainwashed by the Empire. Please, I have your ancestors recorded history with me, written down by his loyal matesprit." She shuffled in her cloak and pulled out a tome covered in bloodpaint and age. Karkat yanked it out of her grasp and chucked it across the room at the garbage incinerator. It thunked harmlessly off the metal shell while a good deal of pages fluttered like freed doves. His guest gasped and turned to him with a hurt expression. 

"You shouldn't be so angry, I'm here to extend a helping hand, to tell you of the growing rebellion! You must know the Empress has grown cruel in her age-" He growled low in his throat, standing up to bare teeth he'd filed sharp in his grubhood. 

"I suggest you get the fuck out of my hive before I start the trial and error taste tests for which spices will match your caste." Like a barkbeast being kicked in the butt she lurched out of the chair and towards the door, off into the dazzling afternoon before he could change his warning. He hoped in a dark corner of his soul that she got caught before sun down. 

Left to his own thoughts he realized he'd been going about this all wrong. If he was preemptively marked in the system and proved to not belong, they'd consider him a spy. No, he'd do this straight forward and harsh, tell them up front what his color was and punctuate the reveal with a quick dispatch. That sounded like a cool action hero thing to do anyway, and if he died it'd stick in that shitty cult's craw for sweeps. 

Karkat walked over and picked up the book, casually stuffing the loose pages back in and pressing the release button for the incinerator hatch. He dropped it into the super-heated plasma and sucked in a slow breath. 

He had a feeling this was going to be a long night. 


End file.
